Valentine Cleanup
by Rio Kamishiro
Summary: Yuma and Rei have to stay late at school... to make a Valentine's party for the rest of the Numbers Club. After hearing a couple comments from Tokonosuke and Takashi, Rei doesn't feel like he can help Yuma decorate... will he feel wanted and actually end up helping?


Valentine's Day was just two days away, and the Numbers club thought it might be nice to hold an event at the school, maybe in an unused room to hold a party.

"Alright then, it's decided!" Kotori exclaimed, holding a paper. "We'll hold it on February 14th, of course, at 6:00 PM." Putting the paper on a desk, she got out a pen. "So who's the one staying at the room late to decorate?"

All of the club looked at each other, none of them saying anything. "Well-ura… I think Yuma should-ura!" Tokonosuke suggested, pointing one finger at him. "Me?! Why?!" Confused, Tetsuo decided to explain it to him. "Well I mean, you aren't probably doing much anyway, so…"

"That is the worst reason I've heard! I have duels to do, y'know!"

Shrugging, Kotori took the top off the pen and started writing down Yuma's name as the 'party decorator'. As she was writing, Rei suddenly raised his hand. "Why don't I help Yuma-kun with that?" He smiled brightly, looking at Yuma sweetly.

As he spoke, the room grew quiet again. Suddenly chuckling could be heard from Tokonosuke and Takashi. "To summarize, you would probably hinder Yuma-kun more than help." The class rep laughed, as Tokonosuke chimed in. "He's right-ura!"

Looking over, Kotori just decided to ignore the two and write his name down with Yuma's. "Come on guys, any help is better than none!" Yuma said, in the defense of Rei. The orange haired student didn't say anything though and just looked down slightly. "Maybe they're right…" He whispered.

Picking up the paper, Kotori handed it to Yuma. "Here's the list of things to do in the room. For the decorations, of course. Good luck you two!"

As everyone else went home, Yuma and Rei stayed behind, making their way across the halls into the unused room. "Alright, here we are. Bigger than I expected."

"You've never seen it, Yuma-kun?"

"Nope! I wasn't there when you guys picked out the room."

"Neither was I… I went to see it on my own." Rei smirked, looking around a bit more. Searching through the list, Yuma quickly realized he needed to buy some things. "Hey, I see that I need to buy some paint. Could you clean up around here while I go get it?" he asked, exiting the door. "Sure!"

As Yuma left, Rei picked up a broom and a wet towel, preparing to clean. Wiping the spare desks in the room, Rei suddenly stopped and had a solemn look on his face. "Maybe I'm…"

_Not good at anything…_

Rei liked to think of himself as a strong duelist and well, good at many things but really… what he was showing Yuma and his friends didn't support that. The things that Takashi and Tokonosuke said earlier repeated in his mind.

_To summarize, you would probably hinder Yuma-kun more than help._

An angered look on his face, he began to clean the room so he could show Yuma how helpful he could be. And luckily for him, he got it all spotless, just as Yuma busted through the door with paint in hand.

"I'm back! Ta-dah!" Smiling, he put the paint cans down and eyed up the room. "Welcome back, Yuma-kun! Um… how does it look?"

Speechless, Yuma's jaw just dropped as he saw that Rei was capable of cleaning the room. And _well_, at that.

"It's not great, is it… I'm sorry, Yuma-kun! I meant well—"

"No, no!" He chuckled, scratching his head. "It looks amazing, I was speechless."

Rei's frown turned into a big smile as he laughed a little, glad he did well. He really just wanted to impress Yuma with how well he could do in various things. "Okay, now we just need to apparently paint the blackboard red and put a couple of banners up… that need to be painted pink and white."

The brighter haired of the two nodded as Yuma stood up on a desk to reach a higher state. Hanging up a banner, he got back off the desk. "… We probably should have painted it first, huh." Yuma said, face-palming at his mistake. "Heh heh, that would have been best. I think we can still paint it while it's up."

"Right. Shingetsu, can you get me the paint from over there?"

"Right!" He said, running over to the desk. "Um… which color, Yuma-kun?"

"Pink!"

Picking up the can of paint, he started to run over to Yuma as he accidentally tripped on a cord that had been leftover from the room's last use. As he fell, the paint splattered all over the clean floor and desks… and of course, on himself as well.

"Sh-Shingetsu!?" Yuma yelled, looking over after hearing the loud 'SPLAT' noise. Running over to Rei, he saw how the other was still laying on the ground, shocked.

Getting up as he was still sitting, Rei looked at all the paint that got over his cleaning job. The time he had put into making it look good… to make Yuma proud, as well as everyone else… it was all ruined now.

His face not visible, he quietly said, "I'm so sorry… I… meant well…" Yuma smiled as he kneeled down, putting his hand on Rei's shoulder. "Don't sweat it, we can clean it up again. But heck, it might take a while now. Oh well, I'll just go get some more pink paint."

Looking at his hand covered in paint, he put it back down and continued to look down at the floor.

"I'll go get some more paint now…" Yuma began to say, as he looked back at Rei.

"Shingetsu?"

Seeing what looked like tears falling from his cheeks onto the floor, Yuma looked slightly concerned as he halted his leaving. "What's wrong? Do you feel sick?"

"N-no, I…" He stopped, getting slightly choked up. "I'm such a failure!" He said louder than he intended, trying to cover his face.

"What..? No, you're not. You just fell, it was an accident." Yuma smiled, trying to reassure his sad friend.

"It's not just this! It's anything I do, I only screw things up and smile, thinking that makes up for me being such a useless… waste of space!"

Wondering why Rei was acting like this, Yuma's mind flashed back to earlier in the day. What Takashi had said… was that it? "Shingetsu, is this because of what the Class Rep said? He was only joking—"

"I'll clean this up myself." He tried wiping his tears as he got up… covered in wet paint making him feel worse. "You can go home, I'll get the paint and… clean it all up."

"No, you won't. I'm not going anywhere."

"Yuma-kun, you don't have to..! I'll only hinder you, just-"

"I don't want to hear you say that again, Shingetsu. I mean it." He said with an overly serious look on his face. Rei looked up at him finally, revealing his crying face. Giving Rei a soft smile now, he walked over to him and put his arm up. "Let's do this, Shingetsu! Kattobing!"

"Y… yes! I understand, Yuma-kun!" He finally happily said, while he still had tears falling down.

After much time spent to fix the place, and Rei changing his clothes… they finally got it all clean together and awaited Valentine's to come. Which actually came faster than they had expected.

All walking in the room on Valentine's, Kotori looked around excitedly. "Wow! This looks better than I had hoped." She smiled, looking at Rei and Yuma. "Ahaha, thanks. Took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears."

Cathy and Tetsuo looked around happily as well, making the two working on it feel even better. And of course, Takashi and Tokonosuke also loved the decorations. "It looks great!" Takashi exclaimed, picking up a snack they had put out for everyone.

Looking towards Rei now, Yuma put his hand over his shoulder.

"You did awesome! I couldn't have done it without you."

"Thank you! It was really you who did it all, Yuma-kun. I only spilled the paint… I meant well, but…"

Yuma shook his head. "You volunteered to help me. That means more than how great this room looks."

Rei looked surprised and then had a couple tears forming in his eyes.

He _wasn't_ useless. Not to Yuma.


End file.
